shashasha

In 2015, the Japanese photographers Ken Kitano, Yuji Hamada, Miki Nitadori, Risaku Suzuki, Kazuyoshi Usui, Yuki Onodera, Naruki Oshima first came together as a loose collective for the 2015 Festival Phot’Aix in France. They have since come together on multiple occasions to hold concurrent events and exhibitions together, for example for the Rencontres de la Photographie de la Marrakech festival in Morocco in 2019.

The publication “Photography? End?” sees writer and curator Mitsuo Wakayama join the collective as an interviewer whose conversations with each of the seven artists forms the base of the book. With each artist given a single chapter, Wakayama and the collective examine the current state of photography, discuss their personal connections to the artform and approach the core of their human-being. The collective has taken great care to make all texts available in English as well as Japanese, and each of the chapters includes an overview of the respective artist’s photographic work. With its scope, variety and great care, “Photography? End?” manages to serve as a personalized overview of current Japanese photography as well as function as a reflective look at what separates and unites this collective of artists.

“As a collective, Photography? End? materialized as though out of a fog, as we discussed, and sometimes argued, our way through the plans and projects that emerged before us. Experience is, ultimately, a journey of steps taken by each individual into the unknown. In sharing our experiences we’ve been inspired by one another, and that mutual respect continues to deepen.”
― from the collective’s afterword “Living the Questions, Encountering the Future”